Sitting administrator Chris Rocheroe admits that the Federal Aviation Administration missed the surprising data trends over the years leading up to the collision between American Airlines' regional jet and military helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC.
“We were very concerned about what we learned from the subsequent research both from the NTSB and our own review,” he said in his March 27th testimony of Capitol Hill.
“Obviously something was overlooked.”
Earlier this month, a preliminary report from the National Transportation Board on the January 29 accident revealed that between October 2021 and December 2024 there were over 15,000 “proximity events” between Reagan National helicopters and commercial aircraft.
According to an NTSB report, in 85 cases near these, the aircraft maintained a vertical separation of less than 200 feet.
The NTSB previously misled the FAA by failing to address the risk of busy collisions at the airport. Earlier this month, NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said the data it collected was “from a voluntary safety reporting system that the FAA could have used at any time.”
She called for the FAA unable to act faster than “stronger than surveillance.”
The reason the FAA did not identify helicopter corridors along the Potomac River as potentially dangerous to the Inbound Jets was the focus of several lawmakers' questions at the March 27 hearing.
Part of the problem is the amount of information collected by the FAA, says Rochero. It's because “tens of millions of safety data are flooded on a rolling basis, so agencies are currently leaning towards artificial intelligence to sift through information.
Rochero says the FAA has seen 10 “hotspots” across the country, identifying helicopters and commercial aircraft as high-risk areas that operate in crowded airspace. He cites examples such as Chicago and Anchorage in Alaska.
“As part of this analysis, we use machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and multiple data sources to find themes and areas of interest,” he says.
“We will take action immediately if necessary to mitigate the identified safety risks.”
Homedy agrees that understanding statistical trends and acting on them is an area of weakness for the FAA.
“It appears that there is a problem identifying emerging trends,” Homedy told lawmakers. “There's a lot of data in the FAA. Get that data and consider trends rather than specific issues” is a prominent lack.
Both aircraft plunged into the ice-covered Potomac River, killing all the crew and passengers.
The NTSB has yet to determine the possible causes for the collision between the US Army Black Hawk helicopter and the PSA airline MHIRJ CRJ700. Homedy says the team of 40 investigators, along with the team assigned to the task, is pushing for the investigation to be completed within a year.
Rochero says he has appointed an FAA administrator sitting by US President Donald Trump and has established a safety risk panel to identify hazardous areas involving helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in the national aviation space.
The accident then prompted the permanent closure of the section of Route 4 Helicopter Boulevard along the Potomac River as commercial aircraft took off near the runway.
“All aircraft that operate on DC Airspace are necessary to broadcast positions and identifications using ADS-B, with very limited exceptions,” adds Rocheleau.
Meanwhile, air traffic control personnel remain a top priority for the FAA. It currently employs 10,750 controllers, with an additional 3,000 currently in training.
The FAA plans to hire another 2,000 controllers this year, boosting employment incentives by boosting wages of 30% for those eligible to attend the ATC Academy.
Additionally, the FAA recently received over 10,000 applications in ATC positions, of which 8,000 were featured in the test.
Also during the hearing, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz revealed that counter-drone tests conducted by the Secret Service and that the US Navy had inflicted false traffic warnings on commercial aircraft in a series of incidents reported on March 1.
